Studying Is Good

From the revision I did today for my upcoming exams, I've had a couple wandering thoughts that I thought I'd share with you. You might want to get yourself a piece of paper and pen to take notes from this post. It's really quite insightful!

Love. In the context of the sociology of belonging. In an individualised society, one of love's facets can be seen as the culmination of finding our identity. Being loved equates to being recognized. Love manifests itself as the desire to be recognized, but not just any recognition - we're talking about being recognized as someone special, as being understood as a special and unique individual. It validates who we are. Though we do need to belong to a wider social group too, love and intimacy give us, to a certain extent, reciprocal identification. And romance is the icing on the cake. On the basis of this formulation of love, based around the need for us to belong, I reasoned that we should tell the person we have a crush on that ... we have a crush on them. I'm sure you'll agree with me that it's a flattering compliment to know that someone has chosen you out of all the people they know, as the special object of their affection; they recognized you as someone unique. Even if it can hurt to wear your heart on your sleeve, and bearing in mind that you need to guard the wellspring of your life, I still don't think there's anything wrong with telling someone you have a crush on them, just like that. Even if it makes you feel like you're 12 years old again and you get butterflies in your stomach. You can say "Hey there sexy, next to you, the world looks colourless, the music has no theme and the lighting's dim." Nah, maybe not. But I'm all up for it. Especially cause I'm the kind of person to think about it excessively much, so in the future I shall take my own advice, rather than waste away with indecision :)

Secondly, childhood. Children are constantly at risk, we are told. 'Make sure you're breast feeding your children', 'watch everything they do', 'you should be worried about everything', 'be careful who they associate with', 'don't leave them alone'… Man. And apparently, some crèches have a webcam hooked up to the CCTV that's in the crèche itself so that during the day, the parents can keep an eye on their kids left in the care of unreliable 'strangers'. How sad can this get?
When making notes for this chapter I remembered when my mum taught me how to walk my way to primary school. She taught me the way the first time and then to make sure I had got it right I led the way the next day. I remember her giving me the "don't speak to strangers" talk, and she said that in case anything ever happened, I should just knock on any house in the village and walk in pretending I knew the person living there. I remember times when I was home alone, and I would play outside with my roller-skates, I'd go half way down the driveway and then skate my way up the hill in a hurry, pretending that a big black car was driving up behind me to kidnap me. I practiced unlocking the door really quickly, getting safely inside, and after regaining my breath, down the driveway I went again. I was half kidding, but I thought it would always be handy to have that practice if ever need be. Back in that little French village, where cows made up for half the population, there really wasn't much to fear. But see, already then I was filled with YOU ARE AT RISK ideas – or perhaps it was just my imagination that ran a bit wild, but I wonder what situation kids would practice for nowadays, if they did. Freaky stuff. Sad stuff too, to think that the world has come to this because of the misuse and abuse of trust. I'll admit that I was a bit OTT when left alone in the house with my preventive practices, but other than that, I loved to play in the garden, climb trees and just be a child. Now, a research tells us that half the parents in Britain would not leave their kids play outside unattended. Sad, definitely sad. We insulate children from their childhood, then they end up isolated - deprived from a proper chidhood. But then again, how does one define what a proper childhood is, and the debate never ends...